Mueller Finally Flips Manafort

Praise the lord, because Manafort has the goods on Trump.

CHECKMATE: THE MANAFORT COOPERATION IS PARDON PROOF

(Emptywheel)


Here's some of the goods on Trump that Manafort likely can nail down, from Seth Abramson:

Trump let the Kremlin WRITE his foreign policy as he was NEGOTIATING a business deal with the Kremlin, and did so though he KNEW Russia was committing crimes against America. Anyone who says that's not collusion can be ignored; anyone asking for proof can read PROOF OF COLLUSION.

1/ Trump's foreign policy's authors: Paul Manafort, Russian agent in debt at least $17 million to one of Putin's "2 or 3" top allies; Richard Burt, lobbyist for a Kremlin-owned gas company; George Papadopoulos, self-described Kremlin intermediary; Dimitri Simes, Putin's "friend."

2/ At the time these men wrote Trump's foreign policy, his personal lawyer (Michael Cohen) and business partner (Felix Sater) were in ACTIVE ("hot") negotiations with the Kremlin (via its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov) to build a Trump Tower Moscow with Russian oligarch Sergey Rozov.

3/ PRIOR to his announcement of his foreign policy (or shortly thereafter, and without ANY alteration by Trump of that policy but, rather, a doubling down) Trump was told by some combination of PAPADOPOULOS, CLOVIS, LEWANDOWSKI, and MASHBURN that Putin had stolen Clinton emails.

4/ Once Trump was told Russia was committing crimes and seeking to aid his campaign in doing so he had a DUTY under federal law—Aiding and Abetting—to take NO ACTION to unilaterally benefit the Kremlin. The foreign policy the Kremlin wrote for Trump was such a unilateral benefit.

5/ Once Trump was FORMALLY INFORMED by CIA and FBI briefers—on August 17, 2016—that Russia was seeking to infiltrate his campaign, he had a DUTY to answer TRUTHFULLY the briefers' questions about whether he had any information on Russian infiltration efforts. He clearly did NOT.

CONCLUSION/ Now you know what "collusion" looks like in real terms. Legally it means many charges of Conspiracy and Aiding and Abetting for Russian crimes, as well as bribery charges. But to be clear, this is only ONE collusive storyline in the Trump-Russia probe. There are MANY.

PS/ The MONEY LAUNDERING is where it really gets fun—and multinational. THOSE facts —and they're indeed facts—involve Kushner, Qatari lenders, the Saudi blockade of Qatar, Emirati nuclear ambitions, and Russian support for Iranian mercs in Syria. It's a barnburner and no mistake.

PS2/ The COLLUSION MEETING is also fun. Did you know Trump Jr. met in August 2016 with Erik Prince (who perjured himself about this meeting) and George Nader (now cooperating with Mueller, but at the time representing the Saudis and Emiratis) and accepted an offer of foreign aid?

HINT: It's treason.